The Nurse describes Medea's situation as Jason's abandoned foreign wife living in exile in Corinth.

The Tutor arrives with news that King Creon plans to exile Medea and her sons from Corinth immediately.

Medea emerges from the house and delivers a speech arguing that marriage reduces women to slaves.

Creon arrives at Medea's house and formally orders Medea and her children banished from Corinth.

Medea convinces a reluctant Creon to grant her one final day before she must leave Corinth.

Jason arrives and argues that Medea's exile is entirely her own fault for railing against the royal family.

Medea catalogues the sacrifices she made to help Jason on the Argo and accuses him of betrayal.

Aegeus, king of Athens, arrives from Delphi and listens sympathetically to Medea's account of her divorce and banishment.

Medea extracts a solemn oath from Aegeus promising her permanent safe harbor in Athens no matter what happens.

Medea pretends to accept her exile and sends her sons to the princess with secretly poisoned gifts.

A Messenger arrives and reports the gruesome deaths of the princess and Creon caused by Medea's poisoned gifts.

Medea decides that killing her children is the only way to completely destroy Jason's house.

The Chorus hears the children crying for help inside the house as Medea murders them.

Jason arrives at the house and the Chorus tells him his children have been killed by Medea.

Medea appears in a golden chariot sent by Helios and flies away unpunished while Jason rages below.

Euripides's tragedy opens with Jason abandoning his foreign-born wife Medea in Corinth to marry a local princess, leaving Medea dangerously isolated. When King Creon orders her exiled, Medea uses her extraordinary powers of persuasion to buy herself one more day in the city. After a bitter confrontation with Jason and a stroke of fortune when the Athenian king Aegeus promises her sanctuary, Medea sets her deadly plan in motion. She deceives Jason into delivering poisoned gifts to the princess, which kill both the princess and Creon in gruesome fashion. With nothing left to lose, Medea kills her own children to obliterate Jason's family line entirely. She then escapes in a divine chariot sent by her grandfather Helios, leaving Jason destroyed and unpunished by any mortal or divine force.

The headline events of Medea's revenge against Jason.

The Nurse wishes aloud that the legendary ship Argo had never sailed to Medea's homeland of Colchis.

Medea's voice is heard from inside the house wishing her children and Jason's entire household destroyed.

The Chorus of Corinthian women emerges after hearing the commotion and convinces the Nurse to bring Medea outside.

After Medea's speech, the Chorus declares its full support for her anger and promises to keep her confidence.

Medea settles on poison as her weapon and prays to Hecate, goddess of witchcraft, for success in her revenge.

Jason argues that his remarriage was a calculated scheme to secure material comfort and powerful alliances for the family.

Jason argues he did Medea a great favor by bringing her to Greece, where her cleverness earns her fame.

The Chorus laments the destructive and overwhelming power of love after Jason and Medea's bitter argument ends.

Medea formally supplicates Aegeus for protection and offers to use her magic to help him father children.

The Chorus warns that Medea's plan to kill her sons is justice far too harsh for Jason's crimes.

The Tutor returns to confirm the princess accepted the gifts and agreed the children may remain in Corinth.

Medea weeps while looking at her sons and explains her tears to Jason as ordinary womanly weakness.

Medea addresses her sons and temporarily overcomes her resolve to kill them before hardening herself again.

The Messenger describes in graphic detail the agonizing deaths of the princess and Creon from the burning poisoned gifts.

Jason begs Medea to let him touch his sons' bodies or give them a proper burial, and she refuses.

Euripides opens his play through the eyes of Medea's Nurse, establishing the depth of Jason's betrayal even before Medea herself appears. The Chorus of Corinthian women quickly becomes Medea's unlikely allies after her impassioned speech convinces them that Jason has treated her shamefully. Jason and Medea's confrontation lays bare the cynicism of his self-serving justifications for the remarriage, while Medea's supplication of Aegeus and her promise of magical assistance secures a crucial escape route. The Chorus expresses growing unease as the plan to harm the children takes shape, and the Tutor's confirmation that the poisoned gifts were accepted sets the final events in motion. Medea's tearful farewell to her sons makes the horror of what she is about to do painfully human, even as she steels herself to go through with it. Jason's final plea to bury his sons becomes Medea's ultimate act of triumph over the man who destroyed her world.

The secondary scenes and arguments that fuel Medea's revenge.

The Tutor reveals it is not unusual for a hero to abandon his family for a new lover without consequences.

The Nurse urges the Tutor to keep Medea's children away from their mother, fearing what Medea might do to them.

Medea tells the Chorus her situation is uniquely dire because she is a foreign exile with no allies remaining.

Creon confronts Medea and admits his decision to exile her stems from her reputation as clever and vindictive.

Medea publicly supplicates Creon to force a social obligation between them and wins herself one extra day.

After Creon leaves, Medea tells the Chorus that his foolish mercy has given her exactly the time she needs to plot.

Medea challenges Jason by reminding him he once supplicated her for help on the Argo, making her his martial equal.

Aegeus reveals he received a cryptic oracle about fathering an heir, inadvertently exposing his greatest weakness to Medea.

Medea announces her plan to use her sons as bait to deliver poisoned wedding gifts to the princess.

Medea concludes that only by killing her own children can she completely destroy Jason's house and legacy.

The Tutor's casual remark that women frequently lose children inadvertently strengthens Medea's resolve to go through with the murders.

Medea is overwhelmed by love for her sons and nearly abandons her plan to kill them.

The Chorus appeals to Helios, Medea's grandfather, to intervene and protect his great-grandchildren from Medea's wrath.

The Chorus compares Medea to Ino, a mythological mother who also killed her own children.

Jason furiously declares it was a catastrophic mistake to bring a foreign barbarian home to Greece.

From the very opening, the Nurse and Tutor foreshadow catastrophe, noting the dangerous precedent of Jason's abandonment and the terrifying unpredictability of Medea's rage. Medea's conversations with Creon and Jason expose how thoroughly she has been stripped of social standing as a foreign exile, hardening her absolute determination to strike back by any means necessary. Creon's fatal decision to grant Medea one extra day, driven by his fear of appearing a tyrant, gives her the precise window she needs to act. The arrival of Aegeus provides the final piece of the puzzle, and Medea's sharp reading of his hidden vulnerability secures her escape route before any crime is committed. Medea's private struggle as she faces her children reveals the profound human cost of her choice, yet she cannot allow herself to relent once the momentum of revenge has begun. When the murders are done and Jason rails against her in fury, his contemptuous words confirm everything Medea ever believed about how little he truly respected her.